


In My Veins

by thepsychicclam



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Kissing, M/M, Post 3a, Road Trip, Slow Build, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/pseuds/thepsychicclam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek drove away from Beacon Hills once before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Veins

Derek drove away from Beacon Hills once before. That time he was running; that time he was crushed by deaths that rested on his shoulders.

Six years ago, Derek left with Laura, and today, it’s Cora beside him.

Different sister, similar situation, same Derek.

*

Cora messes with the radio, listening to some hipster indie bullshit that sounds like noise made in a bathroom. Derek tunes it out. He doesn’t care what’s on the radio. He decided to take the Camaro, left the SUV parked in the loft’s parking garage. He bought it to aid in the search for Erica and Boyd, a four-wheel drive vehicle to take out into the woods and down into canyons that wouldn’t get stuck on rough roads.

He doesn’t like to admit that he also bought it to drive around his Pack, a larger car that would hold more than four people comfortably, five if they were squeezed in the back of the Camaro. 

Doesn’t look that’s going to be a problem anymore. What’s left of his Pack is sitting beside him.

“Where are we going?” Cora asks again. She’s asked him the same question since he brought up the idea of leaving, but he still hasn’t decided. There’s nowhere to go. No matter where he goes, the ghosts will still be there, right behind him, trying to catch up. 

He glances over his shoulder as he changes lanes just over the Oregon border, and swears he sees Boyd’s face. He glances in the side mirror and sees Erica. He sees Paige in the trees, closes his eyes and sees Jennifer, even Kate. His family is everywhere.

They stay the night in a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere, and Cora complains as she lugs her bag up the steps.

“I better not get any diseases,” she says as they open the door. The room is stale with smoke, the bedspread smells sour. Cora wrinkles her nose. “We can sleep in the car, you know.”

“Do whatever you want,” Derek says, toeing off his boots after unlacing them. He drops back onto the bed and stares at the ceiling, afraid to close his eyes. 

“I think there are roaches behind the walls,” Cora says. “I think I can hear them moving.”

“You were locked in a vault for months, how are imaginary roaches a problem?”

Derek hears the motel door slam, and he looks up, stares at it dumbly. She’s furious, and Derek glances around the room, notices his car keys are gone. He can’t muster the energy to care. He drops back to the bed and stares at the water damage on the ceiling. He makes shapes out of the slightly brownish stains, like people do with clouds. 

Derek makes out a triangle, some kind of animal, and a whole lot of nothingness.

All Derek sees is nothingness.

*

When Derek wakes up, Cora’s asleep in the other bed. Derek didn’t hear her come in, wonders just how tired he had been to not hear it. He hasn’t slept in weeks – hell, months, not since Laura died. He’s not sure why he slept last night, but exhaustion always eventually wins out.

He grabs his cell phone off the nightstand out of habit. No one calls him; no one texts him. It wasn’t like there were many people texting or calling before, but they all have Scott now. He’ll fix their problems, keep them safe, keep them alive.

Scott will do everything Derek was never able to do.

Derek feels the urge to crush the cell phone in his hand, to throw it against the wall with so much force that it shatters into ten million pieces. The final severing blow that will cut him off from his old Pack, from his life that was shattered just like he wants to do to the cell phone.

But he doesn’t throw the cell phone. Doesn’t shatter on the outside. On the outside, he’s whole, silent, puts on his socks and shoes every morning.

But inside he’s cracking, little by little, everything spidering out from the origin point of the fire. Each splintered arm has a name, a face attached to it, one more thing that weakens Derek’s foundation. 

Derek just wanted to be happy in his Pack, with his family, stay a Beta, get married, have a few kids, expand and strengthen the Pack. After the fire, Derek wanted to survive with Laura, to grieve and maybe build a life somewhere. After Laura, Derek was alone and wanted to die, but he had to find her killer first, and then protect Scott, and the things that he had to help with just didn’t stop. After he bit his Betas, all he wanted was to feel whole again, to protect himself and everyone else, to find power that he hadn’t felt since his family died. Derek never wanted to be Alpha, but he wanted to do a good job, protect people, make his mother proud.

Derek sits the cell phone back on the nightstand and rolls over, trying to fall back asleep. He doesn’t know what he’s doing now, where he’s going. He’s left Beacon Hills, which was the first thing he thought after everything happened.

_Get out._

Now that he has done that, Derek is lost.

But that is nothing new. Derek has been lost for years.

*

Cora speaks to him again around lunchtime. 

“I want to go to the ocean.”

“Okay.”

They repack their few belongings and get back on the road. Cora changes to a different kind of hipster bullshit, this time something that sounds like it was made with synthesizers and keyboards. It doesn’t annoy Derek as much as her last playlist.

“You’re an asshole,” she says when they’ve been driving for about an hour. They are driving towards the ocean, having to go a long, complicated route because of their remote location. Cora has been directing him with the GPS on her phone.

“I know,” Derek replies.

“You know that’s not cool, right?” Derek shrugs. “You don’t have to be an asshole. You didn’t used to be an asshole. The Derek I remember used to sit on the floor with me and play Barbies in front of my Barbie Dream House. You made up stupid voices and everything.”

“That was a long time ago,” he says. He remembers those times vividly. Cora around eight or nine, and Derek using the one Ken doll she owned. They always had the radio on in the background, the soft rock station she liked at that age, the polar opposite of the indie stuff she listens to now. The years after the fire, he or Laura would hear a song – _Africa_ by Toto, _The Living Years_ by Mike and the Mechanics, anything by Phil Collins or Whitney Houston – and they would think of Cora. And their mother, because Cora got it from somewhere, and Talia loved to play soft rock while she cooked. Laura had teased her mercilessly.

“So?”

“So, I’m different now.” 

“You’ve got that fucking right,” Cora mutters, turning away from him to stare out at the passing scenery. Derek’s hands tighten around the steering wheel as he drives. He’s put up another wall, on top of other walls, trying to hold the parts of himself slipping through the cracks inside. This wall keeps even Cora out, and he’s pretty sure that she’s the only person who still gives a damn about him. 

Derek made three Betas, all three Betas left him. Even that connection didn’t keep them with him. Cora was blood, so she’d always be tied to him, but Derek admits to himself that he’s scared, scared that he’ll lose Cora just like he lost the rest of his Pack. She’ll either be killed or she’ll leave him for someone better.

That’s just apparently Derek’s truth.

*

The sound of the ocean is surprisingly pleasant. Derek finds it soothing, comforting. The beach is empty, the waves large as they crash against the shore. Cora runs towards the water happily, and Derek smiles despite himself. It’s the first time since they left that Cora has felt happy, that the darkness around her has lifted. 

Derek watches her as she takes off her shoes and socks before rolling up her pants. She runs into the water, the waves surging over her feet before receding. Her feet sink in the sand, and she wiggles until they are completely covered.

She turns around, smiling, and for a second, Derek can’t breathe. 

It’s like he’s in an alternate reality, like there’s a place where goodness still exists. She looks at him oddly before she unbuttons her jeans and pulls them off, walking straight into the ocean in her underwear and t-shirt.

“Come join me,” she calls. “It’ll do you good.”

Derek hesitates, but then pulls off his leather jacket, dropping it in the sand as he unties his boots. The late September air is cool on his skin as he walks towards the water, and the water is cold. He shivers as he slides under the surface, holding his breath.

It’s quiet under the water as it blocks out everything; the silence presses on him almost violently, clearing out everything else until it’s just Derek and his thoughts suspended in water. He wonders how long he can hold his breath, wonders if he could remain in this cocoon, wrapped in the security of the strong yet pliant water around him.

When he breaks the surface, he gasps and wipes a hand over his head, pushing his hair off his forehead. He opens his eyes and looks around, and there’s nothing in front of him save miles and miles of grey water with small white-crested ripples breaking the surface.

A hand lands softly on his shoulder and Derek flinches, but then relaxes into the touch. “I told you it’d be good for you,” Cora says.

Derek slides back under the water, craving the silence.

*

Derek and Cora spend hours in the water. They swim, float on their backs, and Cora even coaxes Derek into splashing around and dunking her repeatedly. 

They have _fun_ , and Derek _laughs._

He’s still laughing when he gets to the car and uses a dirty t-shirt to dry himself with. When he’s back in the car, he checks his phone and is surprised to see a text message. His breath catches when he sees the name, and Cora looks over in concern.

_Scott told me you left town. Three days ago. Thanks for saying goodbye._

“Who’s it from?” Cora asks.

“Stiles.” His voice is shaky and cracks a little, but Cora remains silent. She checks her own phone, and finds she also has a message.

“He said he was glad I didn’t die.” Derek looks over at her, and she’s still staring down at her phone.

“And?”

“And to take care of you.”

Derek drops his cell phone in the console and doesn’t text Stiles back.

*

That night they stay in a cabin on the beach in a state park near the Washington border. Derek takes a shower, letting the hot water cascade over his body, loosening his tight muscles. 

He’s tired. Not from anything specific, but a deep bred bone-weariness that three days of driving can’t erase. He’s not sure the rest of his life will be able to erase how he drained he feels both emotionally and physically. He feels weaker since he became a Beta again, his muscles not as strong and powerful. And he feels the change inside, too, like he did when he became an Alpha. Before, he felt power crazed, and now he feels empty and deflated. 

His palms rest flat against the shower wall, and he begins to relax. His cock hardens between his legs, and he grabs it, pumps his fist as he jerks himself, trying not to think of the last time he’d had sex. After Kate, Derek had had sex with multiple people, and it was enjoyable and satisfying. He knows that’ll happen again, but it’ll take some time, just like after Kate. His mind wanders as he tugs his cock, popping from image to image – former lovers, the last time he had sex, porn, random other things that have nothing to do with sex. Just before he comes, his mind flashes to the text message from Stiles, and Stiles’ face is in his mind through his orgasm.

After his shower, Derek wipes his hand across the foggy mirror and looks at himself. His eyes look tired, hollow. His body has already started to lose some of the muscle mass, still lean and fit, but not as bulky as before. He looks at his eyes again, flashes them blue.

Derek expects red to stare back at him, but instead he’s met with ice blue. He’d never gotten used to the red. This blue, this was him. He feels like for the first time in months that he was looking at himself, not some imposter. Because that’s all he had been, a placeholder imitating his mother and sister. They were born to be Alphas, he never was. He’d been the interim until someone better equipped came along. 

Derek changes into sweats and sits outside on the front porch, phone heavy in his pocket. He stares out into the ocean and thinks of Stiles. 

It doesn’t surprise him that Stiles crossed his mind while he jerked off, knew that Stiles had been floating around the periphery of his thoughts for awhile. It doesn’t make any sense, that Derek should think of him when there were so many _other_ things he should be thinking of. But Derek thinks of Stiles’ hand on his shoulder, of Stiles crying in the loft about his father, of regaining consciousness in the elevator and finding Stiles there. 

Small moments, inconsequential really, but when Derek views the last few weeks, they stick out among a litany of pain and despair. 

He pulls the phone from his pocket, rereads the message.

 _I needed to get away,_ Derek finally replies. _I needed to be anywhere but there._

He stares out at the ocean for a long time, watching the waves crash against the shore and the moon move across the sky. It’s waxing, but still round enough to cast light over the beach, bathing everything in a silverish tint.

The phone vibrates sometime later, and Derek picks it up from where he laid it on the porch beside his chair. The time reads a little after 1. He knows the message is from Stiles before he even looks.

_Still could have said goodbye._

Derek smiles.

*

Derek and Cora visit Crater Lake. He texts Stiles about it, and Stiles replies that the only thing he visits is school. Derek cracks a smile, and Cora watches him closely.

“He’s not sleeping, you know,” Cora says a few days later. They’re driving towards Olympic National Park, Derek listening to classic rock on the radio. He doesn’t need Cora to clarify to know which _he_ she’s talking about. Derek remains silent. Cora says, “He texts me sometimes, too. I asked him how he was doing.” Derek realizes he hasn’t asked that question, but Stiles hasn’t asked him either. He wonders if they’re avoiding it on purpose, or maybe they both just _know_.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks.

“I thought you might want to know.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” 

Derek knows she doesn’t miss the lie.

*

_Why aren’t you sleeping?_

_Did Cora tell you? Ugh, your sister is a blabbermouth. Punch her for me. Hard._

_You didn’t answer the question._

_Because._

_Because why?_

Derek doesn’t get a response. He tries not to obsessively check his phone as he and Cora watch TV in their hotel room. She keeps glancing over at him, but she remains silent. They’re watching a marathon of some syndicated crime show, and Derek tries to lose himself in mindless TV. But he can’t, keeps thinking about Stiles.

By the time Derek falls asleep, Stiles still hasn’t texted him back.

*

Derek and Cora drive through the mountains with the windows down. The air blows against Derek’s face, ruffles his hair, bombards him with the smells of the Pacific Northwest. The air is cold even though it’s still early fall. Derek likes it. He likes the way it stings his face, chills him slightly, makes the leather jacket feel more secure around him.

His phone buzzes on the console, and he glances at it.

“Want me to check it?” Cora asks.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Derek drives up to the top of a mountain, and he and Cora wolf out and go running through the forest. It feels refreshing to be running through the woods in his wolf form, although he realizes while he’s running that it’s the first time he’s run like this since becoming a Beta again. He tries to settle into it, to remember the way it felt before. The form settles into his bones as the blood pumps through his veins, and he feels alive for the first time in days.

He howls. Cora looks over at him and smiles, her canines visible with her lips pulled back, and she lifts her head and howls, too. They continue running through the woods, howling occasionally. His mind clears, the weight in his chest lessens a little. 

They find a cliff that overlooks a lake and sit down, their legs dangling off the edge.

“You’re happy,” Cora says, nudging him with her shoulder. “It’s the first time I’ve felt it on you.” Derek feels guilty. He shouldn’t feel any happiness, not with everything that has happened. “It’s like I can read your mind sometimes,” Cora says. “Don’t feel guilty for feeling happy. You deserve it as much as everyone else.”

Derek glances over at her, and she sounds and acts so much like Laura in that moment that he wants to cry. Laura could read his mind. She knew him better than anyone. Cora’s still in a lot of ways a stranger, a child when she had died, a young woman when she resurrected. 

“Where were you?” Derek asks. He’s never asked, wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. But he thinks he’s ready now.

So, she tells him. She tells him about the missing six years, how she got out of the fire, waking up in a strange place not remembering how she got there, being surrounded by another Pack. Derek stares at her in wonder, impressed by the strength Cora shows even though it’s painfully obvious how difficult those years had been for her.

Derek slings an arm around her shoulders, and she snuggles into his warmth. He’s missed this. Touching his family, his Pack, cuddling with them, hugging them, drawing strength from their body heat and steady heartbeats. They stay like that for a long time, just clinging to each other and looking out over the scenery.

“You’re not really an asshole,” Cora says after awhile.

“I am.”

“You’re not,” Cora says again. “You just have a habit of saying the wrong thing.” He smacks her on the head, and she laughs, and Derek thinks the sound is glorious.

*

They stay in a cabin in a small state park, surrounded by tall trees deep in the forest. Derek sits outside again in his sweats and reads Stiles’ text message.

_Did Scott tell you what happened? With the nemeton and stuff?_

_No._

The next text Derek receives is long, explaining about dying and sacrifice and things Derek never expected. He stares at it for a long time, reading and rereading it. Derek doesn’t know what to say, how to respond. He understands, and he knows words are pointless, meaningless.

But for some reason, he finds himself dialing Stiles, even though it’s after midnight on a school night. Stiles answers, but doesn’t say anything. Derek doesn’t say anything either as he listens to Stiles breathing on the other end of the line.

“I hiked to the top of a mountain today,” Derek finally says.

“Did you have fun?”

“I did.”

“I had a cross country meet. I did pretty badly.”

“That’s too bad.” 

They’re quiet again. Derek can hear voices in the background and Stiles moving around. “What are you watching?”

“Um, reruns of _Castle_. I…” Stiles hesitates, then says, “I can’t fall asleep without something on in the background anymore.”

They spend a few more minutes quiet, and Derek tries to ignore how much just hearing Stiles’ breathing comforts him. He should examine that more closely, but right now, he just concentrates on Stiles.

“You need to go to bed,” Derek says later. “You have school tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Stiles moves around in the background. “Good night.”

“Night.”

Derek disconnects the call, and a few moments later he receives a text message.

_the tv helps my mind focus. it’s been hard. i’ve checked on my dad a couple of times a night every night since it happened._

_he’s safe now._

_for now._

*

They drive for most of the day, south towards the desert. Derek was tired of cold and rain, and Cora said she’d never seen the Grand Canyon, so they started south.

Before they left, Derek had texted Stiles. _How did you sleep?_

Stiles texted him back halfway through the school day, when Derek was well into Idaho. _Nightmares, mild panic attack. The usual._

Derek purses his lips and glowers at the road ahead of him.

*

They stay in a hotel in Northern Utah after driving straight for fifteen hours, only stopping for bathroom breaks and to stretch their legs.

He is stretched out on top of the bedspread, watching late night sitcom reruns, Cora asleep in the bed beside him, when he gets a picture text from Stiles.

It’s a picture of the Reno sign, and underneath it read: _Decided to take a road trip._

Derek stares at the photo and Stiles’ message, and finally replies, _What?_

He holds on to his cell phone, waiting for the response.

_Took a page out of the Derek Hale Way of Doing Things and decided to get away. I just got into my Jeep after school and drove. I left my dad a note. He’s pissed, but not much he can do now that I’m in Nevada, though, I guess since he’s the sheriff there is a lot he could do. Hopefully he won’t arrest me._

As quietly as possible, Derek pulls on gym shorts and a t-shirt and slips out of the hotel room. He sits down on a nearby staircase and calls Stiles.

“Are you going to lecture me?” Stiles answers.

“Maybe.”

“Then I’m going to hang up.” 

Derek waits, but Stiles remains on the line. “Thought you were going to hang up.”

“Thought you were going to lecture me.”

“It’s dangerous by yourself,” Derek finds himself saying.

“Derek, you almost sound like you care.”

Derek doesn’t like the way Stiles sounds like he means that. He wants to scream that he does care, and that’s the major problem. He wants to yell to Stiles to run far, far away from him before he touches him and destroys him. 

Instead, he says, “What are you doing in Reno?”

“Sitting in an iHop.”

“You’re just living it up,” Derek says with a small smile playing around his lips.

“Party animal _is_ spelled S-T-I-L-E-S.” Derek hears a waitress in the background, then Stiles sounds like he goes outside. “Where are you?”

“Utah.”

“We’re neighbors.” Stiles laughs, but it’s perfunctory.

“Do you have a hotel room?”

“Yeah. It’s a shady ass place. Didn’t ask me how old I was, or anything. I will probably get some deadly disease and die before the weekend is over.”

“That’s not funny,” Derek snaps, before he can really think about it. Stiles goes silent, barely breathes.

The line goes dead.

*

Derek checks his cell phone first thing in the morning, finds a picture of an empty road and a sunrise coming up over the desert and the words, _Good morning._

*

Derek and Cora drive towards the Grand Canyon, pulling over on a random road to just look out at the desert. 

Derek inhales deeply, fills his lungs with the open air, tries to cleanse himself from everything. Out here, the world seems so infinite, so large and expansive. He hikes to the top of a mesa and looks out over the land. He feels so insignificant from atop the mesa, looks around in wonder at the beauty of the earth. He wonders how life could be so cruel when there were such beautiful, pure places out there. How his life ended up like it did.

The silence is deafening, just like under the water. It’s so loud that it hurts his ears, sounds like a constant hollow. He can’t see Cora down below from his vantage point, but he can feel that she’s near, that she’s peaceful.

Derek gets out his phone. _Out in the desert, nothing seems to matter._

He wonders if he can start over again. Maybe he should change his name, hide in a small town, forget everything from his old life.

But then his phone vibrates, and he sees Stiles’ name, and knows that is impossible. Stiles has buried himself somewhere deep inside Derek, slipped inside one of the cracks before Derek boarded everything up. Or maybe Derek had already boarded himself up and Stiles knew exactly how to slip through, knew exactly the ins and outs of Derek when he didn’t even know that about himself.

That should scare him. Jennifer used everything she knew about him to manipulate him into trusting her. But Stiles isn’t manipulative. Stiles irritates him, and he infuriates Stiles, and there’s a frustration between them, but lately something else has started forming underneath the surface. Interest, because Stiles wanted to understand Derek; concern, because Stiles was there when Derek’s life was falling apart; respect and gratitude, because Stiles didn’t think he was a monster, even when he found out the truth. The whole truth.

_Sometimes I think nothing matters._

Then Stiles sends him another picture.

It’s a picture of a large cow in the middle of a desert.

Derek laughs, deep and full and maybe a little hysterically. He wipes his eyes and responds.

_You would go see a massive cow._

_This cow is awesome, dude._

The silence sounds like air rushing around him, like a light _whoosh_ against his ears even though everything is still, so still. Derek glances around, expecting to see ghosts racing past him, faces of friends and family that he’ll never be able to truly let go. Derek will hold on to them until the day he dies, nothing will help him move on. 

There are some things you just don’t move on from.

Derek climbs back down the mesa and finds Cora wolfed out and running around. He smiles at her, the ghosts an army of guilt and shame behind him, and she shifts back to normal. They walk back to where they left the Camaro on the side of the road, then start off again.

*

 _My dad is pissed,_ Stiles texts him later that day. Derek is sitting with Cora in a chain restaurant, sharing an appetizer of mozzarella sticks.

_Do you blame him?_

“How is Stiles?” Cora asks. 

“He’s in Nevada.”

“I didn’t ask where, I asked how.” She dips the mozzarella stick into the marinara sauce, then takes a large bite, melted cheese stretching between her mouth and the food.

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? You text him multiple times a day.”

“I haven’t asked. And he hasn’t said.”

“You’re an idiot,” she says, huffing and rolling her eyes. “And an asshole.”

_Cora thinks I’m an asshole._

_What did you do?_

Derek is in the middle of replying when he receives: _She’s right, btw._

Derek stares at the words, then slips the phone back into his pocket. 

*

After dinner, Cora and Derek go to a movie – Derek lets Cora pick which one, he doesn’t care, they all look the same – and he barely watches the film.

He wonders if he’ll ever let himself truly think about what’s happened over the last few months. How can he face everything, not find any kind of fault of his own in every action, in every result that has happened? Intentions don’t seem to matter; no one seems to understand that he’s not the villain, that it’s a lot easier to rip him apart afterwards from the sidelines than to think about the impossible choices he had to make in the moment. 

He had to make those choices alone because he didn’t have anyone to support him, didn’t have friends or family; the closest people resembling friends considered him an enemy and tried to kill him, didn’t understand that Derek was trying to keep them safe. Didn’t know that biting the Betas wasn’t to him a monstrous act, but a way to save them, give them a better life, build a Pack, a family. For both power and safety.

Derek blinked and his entire world changed. The smoke still hasn’t cleared all these years later. He knows it would have been better if he’d died in the fire, if someone else would have survived instead of him, or if he’d have died instead of Laura. She would never have fucked up as much, would be a much better role model for Cora. Derek’s no role model.

Cora reaches over and covers his arm with her hand, and he yanks it away, gets up and leaves the theater.

Outside, the air is still warm even after dark. He goes over to a large, round concrete structure with flowers planted in the middle of it and sits down. He pulls out his phone.

_I don’t like movies._

_What is wrong with you?_

_I keep asking myself that question._

Derek’s phone rings a few minutes later. He puts it up to his ear without even looking at who’s calling.

“Are you still in Utah?” 

“Arizona.”

“My dad never wants to let me out of the house again,” Stiles says. “He yelled at me for a good five minutes and threatened to have the Nevada police pick me up.”

“Did he?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“I could be your one phone call.”

“From a cell phone?” Stiles asks with a chuckle, “But nice try at a joke.”

“It’s a work in progress.” Derek smiles, feels some of the tension release from his shoulders.

“I ate at the World’s Best Burger Joint today. Or at least that’s what they claimed.”

“Was it?”

“Not even close. Lying bastards.”

“When are you going home?” Derek asks suddenly.

Stiles is quiet on the other end of the line. Derek waits, listens to Stiles breathe. “I’ll be back at school on Monday.”

“How are you spending your Saturday night, then?”

“I’m driving to Vegas.”

“You’re too young to get in anywhere.”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want to sleep.”

“Don’t want to or can’t?” Derek asks.

“Why don’t you like movies?” Stiles asks, avoiding the question.

“I find them boring. I prefer books.”

“Nerd.”

“Hypocrite.”

“I’m a geek, there’s a big difference.”

“Maybe you’ll have to enlighten me one day.” They fall silent again, and Derek sees people streaming out of the doors, sees Cora walking towards him. “Cora’s movie just let out.”

“Tell her I’m glad she knows how to have fun,” Stiles says.

Derek ends the call, and Cora raises an eyebrow at him as she walks towards the car.

*

They stay in a hotel right off the interstate. Derek feels antsy, unsettled, and he doesn’t know why. He goes for a run, but that doesn’t help. He can tell it’s getting on Cora’s nerves, but something is just buzzing underneath his skin.

“Why don’t you ever talk about Laura?” Cora asks. She’s lying on her stomach on the other bed, watching TV, swinging her legs back and forth in a way that makes her look extremely young.

“It…hurts,” he answers truthfully. 

“I want to know what she was like,” Cora says, turning her head to look at Derek. “What she did after the fire. Will you tell me?”

Derek studies her closely, and then nods. “One day.”

She’s disappointed, but she turns back to the television, satisfied. “That was honestly more than I expected.”

Fifteen minutes later, Derek’s phone vibrates.

It’s a picture of the Vegas strip. _Sin City._

_What are you going to do?_

_I don’t know. Probably sit in an all night diner. Maybe cut down on the caffeine. I’m nearly vibrating in my seat._

_Are you okay?_

Stiles doesn’t text back for over an hour. Derek keeps glancing over at it, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have asked, but he honestly just meant was Stiles okay with the ADHD and the shaking. Derek has seen him like that, has felt how scattered Stiles can get. But maybe Derek meant it in a larger sense, finally asking Stiles the one question they’ve been avoiding.

When Stiles finally responds, he says, _No, I’m not okay._

_Meet me halfway between here and Vegas._

_Huh?_

_I think I was pretty clear._

_You want to see me? In person?_

_Never mind._

_No! Derek, don’t…it took me by surprise is all. Yes, I’ll meet you. Just tell me where._

Derek texts him the exit that is about halfway between them according to his GPS. It’ll take a little over two hours to drive there, and he glances at Cora.

“What?”

“I’m meeting Stiles.”

“About damn time,” she says, glancing over her shoulder. “When?”

“Right now.” He gives her an apologetic look.

“Derek, I’ve been on my own for a long time. I think I can handle a night in a hotel room by myself.”

Derek pulls on jeans, a henley, and his leather jacket. He hesitates before dropping a kiss on Cora’s head as he heads towards the door.

“That’s new,” Cora says, eyes glued to the television. “Maybe this trip was a good idea after all.”

*

Derek doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. This is _Stiles_. But, maybe that’s the reason right there. He doesn’t know what he should say, what he can say, what he will be able to say. It’s been two weeks since he’s left Beacon Hills, but it feels like forever.

Derek pulls off the interstate a few hours later, at a rest stop just over the Utah state line. He’s not surprised that he’s the first one here, so he heads to the bathroom and then buys a soda. He sits on a picnic table and waits.

Stiles drives up half an hour later. The moment he’s out of the car, Derek can tell that he hasn’t been sleeping. He looks awful. His face is pale and his eyes sunken. Derek can feel his jitteriness all the way across the empty space, can smell the remnants of road trip clinging to Stiles’ skin. But underneath it is still _Stiles_ and Derek feels something curl from his chest through his limbs as he breathes Stiles in.

Stiles feels nervous, and he approaches almost shyly. He gives Derek a little wave as he draws closer. He climbs onto the picnic table beside Derek, rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped and hanging between his legs.

“I don’t know what to do,” Stiles says after they sit in silence for almost half an hour. “I just have nightmares, and panic attacks. Scott doesn’t understand, even though he and Allison have this _darkness_ , too. They have each other, and Isaac, and their parents.”

“What about your dad?”

Stiles lets out a dry laugh. “He knows about werewolves now, and he’s pissed at me. Like, so pissed. And I just want to scream at him that I didn’t choose for Scott to get bit, for all this shit to happen to us. That I was trying to protect him. But he just wants to point his finger and point out how much I’ve been lying, how I should have trusted him, how he doesn’t know me now.”

On impulse, Derek reaches out and grabs Stiles’ hand. Stiles looks at him in surprise before relaxing into it and threading their fingers together. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“I mean, I don’t blame him really. I literally have been lying and almost getting killed for months. He’s my dad. We’re all each other has. I just wish he would calm down and try and see it from my point of view.”

“Why did you go to Nevada?” Derek asks.

Stiles shakes his head. “I can’t be anywhere anymore. My head is too jumbled.” He pauses, and Derek squeezes his hand. “I’m scared.”

“Me, too.”

They sit there for a long time, just holding hands and staring out into the night. 

“Are you ever coming back?” Stiles asks.

“Probably. One day.”

“I miss you,” Stiles says. “Don’t, like, break my face for saying that.”

“I’m not going to break your face.”

“No one thinks the Darach stuff affected me, aside from my dad,” Stiles says. “I mean, I know the Alphas didn’t have anything to do with me really, and no one physically harmed me like everyone else, but…” Stiles trails off, trying to collect his thoughts. “Heather was my oldest friend. No one, not even Scott, seemed to care that she was dead. She was just another sacrifice, but she was so much more. She was Heather. My Heather.” Stiles sniffs, and Derek looks at the ground, at his scuffed boots, at Stiles’ beat up Chucks. “And Tara used to feed me dinner and help me with my homework when I stayed at the station after my mom died. She helped my dad a lot, when he was barely keeping it together. She also wasn’t just another sacrifice.”

Derek doesn’t know what to say. He rubs his thumb across the back of Stiles’ hand, feels Stiles’ slightly accelerated heartbeat beneath his touch. 

“I don’t know how to do this, Derek,” Stiles says quietly. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says. “I’m not a good person to ask.”

“You’re all I have.”

The realization hits Derek like a wave. He glances over at Stiles, at the scared, wounded person beside him, and finally understands that somehow, he has penetrated the cracks in Stiles the same way Stiles has done to him. The gravity of that overwhelms him, and Derek jumps off the picnic table and walks away for a moment, away from Stiles’ warmth and smell and heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Derek faces the dark woods behind the rest stop. He can hear various animals, squirrels, foxes, birds, moving around in the underbrush. Stiles comes up behind him, places his palm flat against Derek’s back, between his shoulder blades. Derek leans into the touch, and Stiles brings his other hand up to Derek’s neck. He wraps his long fingers around the side, pressing gently, his thumb brushing over the back of his neck, the knot of his spine.

“There are better people than me,” Derek says, his voice betraying him. He sounds wrecked and thin. 

“No, there aren’t,” Stiles replies, and Derek turns around, into Stiles’ embrace. Derek holds him tightly, his face buried in Stiles’ hair. It hasn’t been washed in a couple of days, smells like all the places Stiles has been over the past 36 hours, but Derek doesn’t care. It smells like Stiles, like comfort, like peace. Stiles’ face is buried against his neck, his soft, warm breaths tickling his skin with each exhale.

Derek pulls away slightly and looks at Stiles, and then he leans forward and kisses him. Stiles’ lips are chapped and dry, and he’s hesitant, nervous, and Derek is okay with that. He presses small, close-mouthed kisses against Stiles’ lips, gentle brushes that leave Derek tingling all over in ways he’s never felt before. He doesn’t know what he’s ready for, what he can handle and deal with, but standing like this with Stiles, he’s not felt this safe in a long time.

Stiles opens his mouth and Derek slips his tongue inside Stiles’ parted lips. Stiles sighs and emits a small gasp at the same time, and Derek smiles against his mouth. He feels Stiles’ smile, too. His hands are in Stiles’ hair, fisting the material of Stiles’ hoodie, and both of Stiles’ hands are underneath Derek’s jacket, gripping his back like a lifeline.

When Derek pulls away, he rests his forehead against Stiles’, and their breaths mingle until Derek can’t distinguish between the two.

“What now?” Stiles asks.

“I don’t know,” Derek says. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Me, either.”

Derek kisses him again, and then leads him over to the cars. Stiles climbs into the backseat of the Camaro with him, and they move around as they try to fit comfortably in the small space. They finally end up with Stiles lying on top of Derek, their legs tangled and bent at odd angles. Stiles rests his head on Derek’s shoulder.

“Go to sleep,” Derek says softly. 

“I don’t want to,” Stiles responds. His fingers play along the collar of his shirt, brush across the bare skin of Derek’s throat. It doesn’t bother him, it doesn’t challenge him. It feels safe, it feels right.

Derek threads his fingers through Stiles’ hair. “I’m not going anywhere. You need to sleep.”

“You’ll leave tomorrow, and I’ll go back to Beacon Hills, and you’ll go wherever, and I may never see you again.”

Derek sighs, and Stiles’ hand tightens around his bicep. Derek runs his hand along Stiles’ back as he thinks, slides his palm under the three layers of clothing to press it flat against his lower back. He doesn’t miss the small hitch in Stiles’ breath. He removes it after a few moments, goes back to rubbing along the length of Stiles’ spine.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Derek finally says. Stiles tenses, his hands curling tighter around Derek’s arm and neck. Derek likes the way it feels, the pressure on his skin, the desperation and need someone else has for him. He wonders if Stiles knows he feels the same way about him. “But I will return to you.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Stiles nods, his hair tickling the side of Derek’s face. “I get it,” Stiles finally says. “I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”

“Me, too.”

Stiles raises his head and kisses Derek again, long, languid, and slow. Stiles’ tongue explores Derek’s mouth like he’s trying to memorize it, trying to discover the bits of Derek he doesn’t know. Derek knows that Stiles has been studying him and uncovering parts of himself since the day they met, and hopes that when Derek comes back, when he’s ready, Stiles can help him discover things about himself. Maybe Stiles will find the good things, help Derek discover that there is goodness left inside him. Or maybe Stiles has enough for them both, despite the darkness. Maybe Derek can help erase the darkness, help bring light back into Stiles’ eyes. Because Stiles doesn’t deserve to be dark; he’s nothing but a bright spot in Derek’s life.

Derek licks into Stiles’ mouth hungrily, trying to get past his own anxiety, to remember this is Stiles. Stiles, whose body feels so perfect on top of him, whose mouth is soft and willing and sweet, whose arms feel like the safe haven Derek has been searching for. Stiles, who has saved him numerous times instead of just leaving him to die. Derek clutches him, trembles as he holds on and hopes with all his might that he doesn’t destroy him, too. Because if Derek destroys Stiles, it’s the last piece in destroying himself.

Derek wraps his arms around Stiles and holds him close, buries his face against Stiles’ neck. Stiles holds him just as tight, and they lay there for a long time, just breathing together. When Derek finally releases him, Stiles looks down at him as he brushes his fingers through Derek’s hair, trails his fingertips across his forehead, cheeks, drags his thumb across his lower lip and his stubble.

He doesn’t say anything as he snuggles against Derek, fitting himself perfectly against Derek’s body. Derek wraps his arms around Stiles’ small frame and holds him, and Stiles falls asleep within a few minutes.

Derek holds Stiles tightly in the back of the Camaro, staring out the back window at the sky, and waits for the sun to come up.

-fin

**Author's Note:**

> \----> [tumblr](http://thepsychicclam.tumblr.com) if you want to come say hi.


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